


Static

by wavewright62



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Drama, Gen, Oblique Reference to Offscreen Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 06:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12811851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wavewright62/pseuds/wavewright62
Summary: As the events of pages 736-750 played out in Denmark, Siv was fixing dinner at the Mora Expedition HQ, and worrying as usual.





	Static

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution as the letter S in the SSSS Alphabet Challenge.

\----------  
Bosse twisted and stretched as he lay in the late afternoon sunbeam, displaying his magnificently fluffy belly. Anna stopped twirling the radio operator’s chair for a moment and reached over to rub Bosse’s tempting belly. Siv sighed as the inevitable happened and Bosse metamorphosed into claws and teeth surrounding Anna’s hand. Anna cried out and scolded the cat, who glared, fluffy tail flicking, at the hapless girl as she yanked her hand away. Bosse then lay down on the console again, tail still flicking. Anna surged forward as though to sweep him from the console, but Siv stopped her.

“Leave him _alone,_ Anna.” A quick glance told her there was no signal coming from the radio. No surprise there. Keeping the radio on standby didn’t use much electricity, so they had gotten into the habit of leaving the radio on. For the last week it had been little more than a warm place for Bosse to sleep. “And how many times have I told you not to swivel on the chair, you’ll break it.”

It was not a question, and the girl made no attempt to answer it, but scowled and stared at her outstretched legs as she continued twisting in the chair, first left, then right. “I can try using the radio,” she said with a pout as she looked sidelong at Siv, “Old Trond showed me how.”

“I did no such thing,” came Trond’s crotchety voice from the dining room, “and it’s _General Andersen_ to you.”

“Sorry,” Anna mumbled. She stopped twisting for a moment and looked at the radio again, with Bosse curled between the speakers. The frequency readouts were no longer flat; they were twitching slightly. She watched with fascination, hoping to get one of those eerie bursts of static with the voices in it.

“She just wants to hear the voices again,” Håkan commented from beside Siv. When she asked him what he meant, the boy shrugged and said, “she thinks she can hear like, people’s voices and all, in the static. She’s got Sune all riled up over it, too.”

“I can, too!” Anna yelled at Håkan. “They’re all creepy and asking for help,” she shuddered.

“Of course they are,” Trond snapped at Anna, “who told you otherwise?”

_That would have been me,_ Siv silently replied inside her head. She had been trying to protect her children from some of the realities she faced every day at the lab. It was so much easier to think of the trollified as non-human. But of course the older ones learnt about all of that in school, exposing Siv for the coward and liar she was. She had no riposte for Trond.

Siv shook her head ruefully as she and Håkan carried on peeling the potatoes. _Anna, Anna,_ she thought, _don’t ever become a scientist._ Siv had been the same way when she was a girl, insatiably curious and always poking and prodding and experimenting on things. She’d been so proud to have her thesis accepted at the Dagrenning Institute in Reykjavik, then be accepted onto the staff at the Institute in Mora, eager to try her gene therapy techniques in the fight against the scourge of the Rash. Now she hated her job and all that went with it; the twisted nightmares in the glass tanks, the way they almost looked at her as she scooted past with her back against the wall, the sinking knowledge that they could kill her if she allowed so much as a tiny hole in her hazmat suit, and especially the soul-numbing certainty that all of their experiments would be failures. Better that Anna should become something useful, like a plumber or something.

Siv washed her hands and picked up the timer for checking Onni’s pulse. He had a weak but steady pulse. He’d lain comatose on the lounge sofa since the morning they found him crumpled and unconscious on a charred patch of floor, with burns on his head and hands. It was a burn pattern consistent with an electrical shock, the doctor said and Siv concurred, although no appliances seemed to be involved, and the wiring of the house still seemed all right. The doctor who examined Onni shrugged and suggested lightning; but he knew and Siv knew they didn’t have lightning storms in the winter. Taru, normally so down-to-earth and practical, suggested a magical attack.

Onni was so still, and so pale, Siv noted with pity as she continued monitoring his pulse. Tuuri had sounded almost _glad_ that Onni couldn’t come to the radio when they’d checked in after the troll attack on their camp. Tuuri wanted to tell him herself about her injury and her subsequent quarantine from the Icelandic stowaway civilian, just in case. She felt well, had no fever or any of the other classic symptoms. She’d downplayed her injury, and cheerfully moved on to discussing fixing the tank to keep moving toward their rendezvous point. She was quite buoyant and confident, but more telling was how Mikkel discussed their quarantine preparations with Siv and Torbjörn in some detail.

It was a contingency the four organisers had discussed once Tuuri was confirmed for the mission, but since all the other crew were immune, they hadn’t spent any of their scant funds on hazmat suits or plastic sheeting or a portable UV unit. The crew had had to improvise.

Then they had lost radio contact with the crew. There wasn’t any static; there was no signal at all on the line. Trond and Taru had reassured the captain of the rescue boat that they should be at the pickup point more or less on time, but their radio wasn’t working properly. The Quartet had agreed amongst themselves to enquire about the availability of quarantine facilities on the ship, but hadn’t yet informed the ship of Tuuri’s status. Siv knew, though, that Tuuri was likely to be exhibiting symptoms when she turned up at the rendezvous. They might not even let her aboard.

Torbjörn was still so hopeful that Tuuri was correct, in that she might not have come in enough contact to contract the Rash illness. He teased Siv about always being so negative, so Siv had said nothing. The image of the tanks at work floated into her mind’s eye, but she quashed that thought firmly. In two weeks, they would know.

She stopped short, paring knife held mid-air. _How long had it been since the attack?_ The calculation took only a second. _Two weeks._ Siv knew only too well how it began, and with crushing certainty she imagined Tuuri discovering the first patch of Rash on her neck or chest.

Siv was trying to hide her panic at the thought, when she heard the burst of static from the other room, and almost dropped the half-peeled potato onto the kitchen floor. Trond could be counted on to turn off the radio if one of those troll-speak laden bursts came on. Bosse suddenly hissed at the radio and jumped down from the console, diving under the dining table. Håkan put down his peeler and ran to the radio, wiping his hands on his school uniform pants as he left the kitchen. “Anna, what are they saying?,” he called as he ran.

Anna was staring transfixed at the radio. “She wants to talk to her brother,” she breathed in wonderment. “Mamma, I think it’s the crew!,” she yelled back to Siv. Håkan elbowed his way past Anna and reached for the dials. Trond had stood up from the table but had stopped, watching Bosse puffed up and wide-eyed as he cowered under the table. Anna continued staring at the readout as Trond caught up to Håkan and put on the headphones. “They’re lost,” she whispered.

“No kidding,” Trond muttered under his breath as he attempted to clear the signal. Siv washed and dried her hands again and came to wait beside Håkan, putting her hands on Anna’s shoulders.

Anna was shaking, and she leaned back into Siv. “Mamma,” she said softly, “Mamma, they want to know if I can hear them.” Then after a long moment punctuated only by Trond swearing under his breath as he adjusted the controls, Anna whispered solemnly, “I’m sorry I called you fat.”

Puzzled, Siv gently steered Anna away from the radio, and bade her to go upstairs and get Taru, just in case. Unusually, Anna obeyed without resisting, running off quietly, passing Sune as he came running down the stairs. He collided with and clung to Håkan, crying, “they’re all scared of the big swan.” Siv was amazed to see Håkan hug and comfort his little brother instead of teasing him. Siv opened her mouth to call Sune to her, but a noise in the lounge distracted her.

On the sofa, Onni stirred in his coma, his breath coming faster, eyes flickering behind his closed eyelids. From his parched lips cracked the single word, “eeeii,” and with a moan he lay still once more.

Trond shucked off the headphones and returned to the dining room, but did not turn on the light as he went in and sat down again. Siv checked on Onni, who had shifted slightly in his coma, but not dislodged the intravenous drip. His pulse was more rapid. _Good,_ Siv thought, _perhaps he’s coming round. We can certainly use some good news._ She returned to the kitchen to finish setting up their dinner.

The last rays of the sunset dimmed in the house in Mora, as the radio fell silent.

**Author's Note:**

>  _So many_ S-words I had ideas for - Sigrun, Siv, Spaghetti, Skiing, Silent, Somewhere, etc etc. But this one finally took hold of my imagination and won out. The next S-word that comes to mind is, simply, _Sorry._


End file.
